Accidental Nostalgia Review
Postmodernist '90s themes meet '60s Dixie Land tunes in this charming operetta about the effects of amnesia that may leave audience members scratching their heads over its enjoyably odd mixture of medicinal meandering and musical sobriety.
Writer/composer/performer Cynthia Hopkins explores the triumph and malfunction of personal memory with full force, playing the role of psychogenic amnesiac Cameron Seymour. Hopkins entwines her character in a fragile labyrinth of reconstructed suppressed childhood memories to discover her forgotten past and the murder of her abusive father.
Broken into three acts, it begins as a self-help lecture that offers a sceptical look at psychological theories and leads us through various turns in Seymour's life as we accompany her back to her hometown fraught with troubling relationships and a remedial rebirth in Morocco.
The pseudo-medical beginning that transforms into an autobiographical search of Hopkins' character allows the approach to be scientific, confessional and spiritual without sentimentality or self-pity usually rife in stories exploring unstable childhoods.
Incorporating elements of the 1950s murder mystery style with an avant-garde multi-media approach amid hints of absurdity and farce along the way, Hopkins' takes the audience on a chimerical journey of how we consciously assemble our life and the lives of those around us in a histrionic and intrepid piece of theatrical art; starkly and darkly portrayed by Hopkins who plays a variety of roles with great inventiveness.
As the story progresses, the intercepting alternative country songs range in tone from insouciance to pensive, delivered beautifully by Hopkins' buttery toned honky-tonk vocals and seamlessly woven within the plot to drive it forward.
Hopkins' has the capacity as a performer to totally enthrall the audience and is backed up by an array of technical gadgets. Microphones, projections and mini-cameras are imaginatively used by Jim Findley and Jeff Sugg whose technology is relatively low-tech in today's gadget obsessed world. Also supporting Hopkins in dance numbers, Findley and Suggs enhance the action and deliver some great, mesmerising choreography by Jordana Che Toback.
Although the piece takes a while to truly get into its flow, once engaged the dream-like magic is enthralling and is an experience that may not give answers, but is enough to just witness. It's escapism that confuses and hunts but holds your attention and dares to venture into uncultivated territory.
Times: 12-30 August (not 17, 24 Aug), 10.30pm
© Lindsay Corr, August 2009
